So far…

It’s my birthday! A year of growth behind me and a new year of learning experiences ahead of me! I’m so excited to go in this journey. I always thought 28 was my mystical magical number. When I was younger it was the number I said I would keep forever whenever I was asked my age-true story– I feel like at 28 you know yourself now more than ever in your 20s. –Let me explain– in my experience my 20s have been nothing but one learning lesson after the other. It has been a struggllllleeee girl! I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know what I wanted to be or do, I felt like for the most part, my 20s was this big black hole of not knowing. Add to that making huge mistakes and having to learn to deal with them. My 20s was pretty much like just figure it out. I wouldn’t change any of it though because everything led to this beautiful point: self awareness.

What a beautiful thing it is to actually know one’s self, to be confident in who you are, to proudly say this is who I am, like it or leave it I really don’t care either way! I know what I want to accomplish-might not know how to get there but at least I have purpose, right? – I know what I will and won’t accept from life, I just know! Boom that’s it. For so long it felt like I was walking through a dark hallway, no direction just literally figuring it out as it came to me- it’s a horrible feeling, but maybe it’s necessary-

“Rock Bottom is the solid Foundation on which I Built my life.”

Shit just got real

25 was a rock bottom year, I spoke about this in a past blog, but never really felt comfortable talking about everything I was going through.-however if you’re a loyal reader, then you know I was in a dark place-. I suffered the loss of a pregnancy, the loss of a friendship that I loved dearly, and the loss of financial freedom by having to file bankruptcy. 25 was hard, a lot of pain and tears. Most days were a struggle to make it out of the bed, but thank God for family.

26 was a faking it till you make it year. 26 I literally picked myself up and started to figure it out. I made affirmations and goals. I planned for things I wanted to accomplish, I found my purpose. 26 seemed to go by very quickly. It was definitely a transition year.

27 was letting it all go and working on a foundation again. 27 taught me a lot of things. I call 27 my year of rebuilding. Now that I knew my purpose I began to work really hard at it and made strides. I also really began to understand myself. I feel like before 25 I had this idea of who I was, but I didn’t really know or to be clearer I had this idea of how I wanted the world to perceive me but I didn’t really know who I was. I feel like everything that happened after 25 got me to this point of knowing who I am, what hurts me, what angers me, what energy I wanted to entertain, and what kind of man I desire to have in my life.

Now that I’m moving closer to my 30s, I feel like I’m moving toward my best life. So often I hear people say that your 30s are the best time of your life and I’m inclined to believe them simply based of the feeling I have about moving into 28. I can see the light appearing in the tunnel getting brighter. It’s not full rainbows and sunshine but it’s not all darkness anymore either.

I always give my birthday a theme. Be Open.

I watched a movie called ‘Love by the 10th date’. It was one of those lifetime movies where its cheesy and predictable, but it got me to look into my own life and I realized that I’m very open minded but I’m not a very open person. If something doesn’t appear how I think it should or doesn’t meet my expectations, initially, I shut it down. I’m especially bad at this when it comes to relationships, or just getting to know someone. I don’t know how to just have fun and enjoy the ride. I’m either all the way turned off or all the way ready to jump in-I hate being in the gray! Watching this movie I had an “ah ha” moment –hell typing this paragraph I had an “ah ha”moment- this is all a self defense mechanism. Rather than letting myself experience it, I try to figure out a way to protect myself before it can even go wrong by finding something wrong- and chile that’s just not living! – Or I get incredibly invested way too soon and scare the person away- in my defense though it’s incredibly rare if you can actually get me to like you!-

I’m not just applying this to my dating life, but in all aspects. I want to be open to all this beautiful universe has to offer me. Positive vibes only though!

What are some things you find yourself closed off to? What o you feel you could be more open to? Let’s talk in the comments below!

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I’ve been feeling full. Not in the “I just ate a great meal and I’m about to float off into the itis” full- which I would have gratefully preferred-. My soul has been full of negative energy. I couldn’t figure out what I could’ve done or opened myself up to, to suck in all of this negative energy.

Ok that’s a lie, I have been working on opening myself up to be vulnerable and alive. What I didn’t realize was I was also opening myself up to negativity.

Our environment can greatly affect us, in the best and worse ways, which left me to look at only one source: work. I work all the time-I may have taken Kevin Gates lyrics way too serious– but one job was becoming so toxic I was letting it affect other areas of my life.

I didn’t even realize I was picking up the energy and carrying it with me, but I’m sure my subconscious realized something was off. I randomly began to say while at work, “I refuse to talk about this, I don’t need that negative energy in my life.” and I would close my eyes and take a quick inhale and long exhale.

I noticed I was saying it all the time to the point where I was very aware every time I said it. Not only that, but I began to slowly and firmly put my foot down and stand on what I was saying and not letting anyone sway me on my decision and then there was the obvious; I just blatantly stopped giving a fuck.

The more it happened, I began to feel clearer and the clearer I became the more apparent it was to me that it was time for a job change or to make a change in the job. The job was dulling my creativity.

I put my creativity above everything. My creativity is who I am. I have to be able to express myself in whatever medium that may be, I know that I am not Veronica or LilSis without my creativity, without the ability to unapologetically express myself. To leave it all on the table and be proud of what I just did. And this job indeed was not providing me that comfortability because I was so consumed with the toxic part all I was pouring out was the negativity and a horrible attitude it was pouring into me. Instead of being empty and allowing the universe and ideas flow to and through me, I was eating everything negative and projecting out attitude and disdain.

Now, with that being said I know what you all are wondering, did you quit the job? As much as I would love to say yes! I laid it all out on the table, let them have it and chucked the deuces!!! I like my bills to be paid on time and a roof over my head. So if there was no way around it, I had to learn to work through it. Rather than allowing myself to become extremely upset and carry what ever happened at work with me, I chose to look at it through different lenses, a comical one if you will. this was a job, not my career, not my passion, not my main focus, just a means to pay my bills so that I could focus on my passion and purpose- cause lets be honest its all just work until my passion and purpose step in and make me millions–

The key is to be choosy on what you allow yourself to be open to and how you react to it.

Not every cause deserves a reaction. That is something I learned in anger management. –see therapy does help!– Sometimes the best response is no response at all. It takes a certain level of maturity to reach this, however. Once I figured out how to control my reactions to the situation and not focus so much energy on it, I began to feel a little better. I had to tell myself this job is not the important thing here, my acting is, my blogging is, the things that I am passionate about, the things that feed my soul that’s what’s most important. I had to learn to stop caring about the things that didn’t feed me or only took away from me because they were turning me into a bitter mean person.

I did, however, purge. In order to replace the negative energy with positive energy I had to empty all the negative out. I sat and wrote a very detailed email to my leadership and sent it with a prayer that hopefully –faithfully– everything would get better and if not for me at least for the next employee that takes the job. -and let me tell you guys it was an instant change in energy! 5 mins before the email I was ready to leave the job and hustle to find better, but once that email was sent it was like a weight lifted off of me and my soul was no longer anchored! I immediately felt the positive energy radiate through me!

What are some things you focus on that do not serve a purpose in your life? What are some things that take up way too much space in your soul that you can purge? Leave them in the comments below! Lets Talk About It!

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Hey there! If you’re new to the blog, Welcome! If you are returning because you just can’t get enough, I’m sure you have noticed some major changes. Initially, when I started this blog, I did it for the love of writing and sharing my thoughts because I wanted to make connections and hopefully what I was sharing was reaching someone and it helped- that’s what life is about right?- but I found myself holding back and not being as transparent as I wanted to be. I also didn’t like my house (blog site) it needed a major facelift and feel more like me- which was really important to me if I was going to take this huge leap with being more transparent, I had to feel comfortable in my space.

It was because of those reasons above that I hit a block. I wasn’t motivated to write anymore. So, I started this long process of really investing in myself.

I was also in a place in my life where I thought I knew who I was and everything changed, evolved, if you will. I could always see this spark inside me just waiting to burn brighter, but I wasn’t sure how to unlock it. I’ve been taking acting classes –which I recommend to anyone even if you don’t aspire to act, it’s seriously like a class on just being the best version of yourself– it’s really helped me learn more about myself and my emotions. I saw that spark starting to grow into a fire. Now, acting is a passion of mine so this could be me feeding my passion, but once this spark started growing all these ideas started flowing in my head. So much so that I had to start carrying around a note book to keep up with them!

I always had a pretty good idea of who I was just from the perception other people had put on me, but was that who I really was? I also felt like I was pouring all these emotions out, but I was empty. And I couldn’t give what I really wanted to because I was very empty. Not saying that anything I was doing was inauthentic, but it was just the surface.

At job interviews, there’s always that one question they ask, where do you see yourself in 5 years? I would always give some bullshit answer because I needed the job. While going through this growth, I went on a job interview and was asked that exact question; I started to give my prepared, generic, best basic answer, and realized this is not what I want to do. Even in my daily job, I began to see this is not where I see myself retiring. I realized I had a very clear vision of the life I wanted and I was deliberately avoiding it. Which is funny because the thing that made me happy was hard so I avoided it, but the thing that was bringing me misery I was doing every day and complaining about it

– like oh no baby what is you doing?!?!-

I always thought if you were living in your purpose and doing what you were called to do it would come naturally and be easy. Everything would make sense, doors would open, and it would be like why haven’t you been doing this all along?! WRONG! I have said in previous blogs that I had a very crystal clear vision of what my purpose was and I took steps to walk in that purpose. When I initially started walking in my purpose I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, I was super uncomfortable, and I felt like I was in way over my head. Nothing was coming easy, not all doors opened and everything felt so unnatural. I struggled A LOT and my self doubt kicked in to overdrive. So much so that I thought about quitting. I thought I’m not cut out for this, maybe this isn’t what I should be doing. The moment I thought about giving up I was overwhelmed with tears and I was depressed. My mother told me, if that could make me this upset I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. God- or whatever/whoever you believe in– will test you, he will shake the ground, make it steady, then test you again. It’s up to you how you want to take the test. Oh the irony of this conversation! Earlier that day, I had a very open conversation with my coach. She also told me that the universe – or God– is trying to push me in a direction that I’m trying my damnedness to ignore because its difficult and hard and I don’t want to do the work. But she also told me that I had a lot of potential and that if I do the work I would be the person I’m so desperately trying to avoid.

Why do we avoid becoming who we are destined to be? That’s the story line for every great character right? They spend the whole movie avoiding their destiny and when they finally tap into it the world opens in ways they couldn’t have possibly imagined. If the end is going to turn out that way every time, why do we do our damnedness to avoid it? Maybe because we feel we are inadequate? Maybe because we don’t really believe in who we are? Maybe because somewhere along the way the world told us we weren’t special enough. Whatever the case may be, it’s time to change our way of thinking!

So guys this it me. Unapologetically me, promising not let your perception be my reality, and to be my best authentic self every day. Promising to change the way I view myself and start believing more in me,- because I’m a pretty awesome person. Promising to not let the negativity of the world into my soul and tear me down, or tell me what I should or shouldn’t be, or how I should or shouldn’t act, or control who I am and what I believe. I will be still in my moments and have joy every day. This isn’t a new me, this is just a version of me without fear driving the bus!

So is fear driving your bus and if so, are your ready to take the wheel?